Never Let Me Go
by RunYouCleverBoyAndRememberMe
Summary: "No" Sherlock croaked, trying to deny the evidence of his own eyes, "Please, God no" He fell to his knees and reached out his arms. "John, please… wake up" One shot based on the picture. In which John Watson is Lilly Potter and Sherlock is Snape. NOT SLASH, FRIENDSHIP. crappy summery but please read anyway.
1. Chapter 1

**So here are you daily dose of feels today! Yeah I wrote this as a friendship piece, because I don't ship Johnlock, but if you want it to be… well I won't stop you. Just so you know Sherlock is Snape…**

Sherlock should have known he wouldn't make it out alive. Spying for the Dark Lord, easy. Spying for Dumbledore, slightly harder, but still not above Sherlock considerable talents. But Sherlock hadn't been prepared to die. Admittedly he had no idea what he would have done after the war, not with everyone thinking he was a soulless murderer and it wasn't Sherlock.

A noise from the side. Sherlock turned his head to look. It was _him. _His face was a mixture of horror and disgust, at Sherlock, who was trying, with shaking hands to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. Sherlock knew he would have to time to tell the boy the truth.

"Take…it" he rasped, as he poured his thoughts and memories out to the boy. The boy's hands were shaking as he gathered the memories in a bottle that the Mudblood had conjured. Sherlock could see the memories in his mind's eye as he let them go…

17 years ago

Sherlock appeared on to the street. He had to find out, had to see for it himself that it was true, otherwise he refused to believe it. The Watson's cottage was clearly visible and Sherlock refused to acknowledge what that meant. He opened the door carefully, terrified of what he might see. The door fell to the floor with a crash. It had been blown apart. Slowly he ascended the stairs. There, half way up, was the cold dead body of Mary Watson. The bully who had always hated Sherlock, yet revered by everyone else. The person who made Sherlock's life practically unliveable. The person who had stolen Sherlock's only friend, the only person he had ever-no. He couldn't even say they word in his mind. He carried on upwards. Now he could a baby crying. The Dark Lord had failed to kill the boy, maybe he would have spared-

The door in front of him had been blasted apart and he stepped inside it. What he saw made him collapse against the door frame. The baby was crying in the cot, and on the floor…

John Watson lay on the carpet, still wearing his old grey jumper. His arms were twisted from where he fell. His unique blue eyes were wide open seeing nothing, staring at the son who he would never know. John Watson was dead.

"No" Sherlock croaked, trying to deny the evidence of his own eyes, "Please, God no"

He fell to his knees and reached out his arms

"John, please… wake up"

He took John in his arms and rocked his lifeless body. He let his emotions out and screamed in rage a grief. His eyes must be wrong, because John Watson could not be dead, there was no way.

_I'm sorry John, I'm so sorry, I did this, I betrayed you, I'm sorry I'm so so sorry. I didn't want this to happen. _

How long he sat there rocking John's body and sobbing he had no idea, but Hagrids bike awoke him from his grief. He gently placed John back on the floor, gave a whispered apology and apparated away.

Present

The boy put the stopper on his bottle of memories. He was the spitting image of Mary, only male. But his eyes were not Mary's. They were John's. Sherlock reached up and grabbed him by the robes.

"Look… at… me" he rasped

John's eyes met his own, and suddenly John's voice filled Sherlock's ears.

_You're not going to take all day are you?_

_John, I'm coming _Sherlock thought

_Come on, you idiot! I've been waiting for ages!_

Sherlock focused on the last living remainder of John Watson.

"You have…your father's…eyes…"

John's eyes met Sherlock's. But then something in Sherlock's seemed to vanish. Sherlock slipped away gratefully, hoping that where ever he was going, John Watson would be there too.


	2. Chapter 2

**I know this was meant to be a one shot, but then the plot bunnies hit me, and people asked for some of the flash back scenes, so I complied. **

**Obviously a lot of this is borrowed from JK Rowling, but I hope you enjoy my additions to it.**

**I, like the BBC, apologise in advance for the feels.**

They were back in Dumbledore's office, the windows dark, and Fawkes sat silent as Sherlock sat quite still, as Dumbledore walked around him, talking.

"the boy must not know, not until the last moment, not until it is necessary, otherwise how could he have the strength to do what must be done?"

"But what must he do?" Sherlock questioned still not seeing the point.

"That is between him and me. Now listen closely, Sherlock. There will come a time, after my death, do not argue, do not interrupt! (Sherlock had opened his mouth to speak)There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake."

"For Nagini?" Sherlock asked. He knew the snake was a horcrux, but why would Voldemort worry? He thought no one knew of the existence of his horcrux.

"Precisely. If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell him."

"Tell him what?"

Dumbledore took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Sherlock was suddenly wary.

"Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when poor Mr Watson cast his own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside the boy, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by the boy, Lord Voldemort cannot die."

Sherlock listened to Dumbledore from one end of a long tunnel; he seemed so far away from him, his voice echoing strangely in his ears.

"So the boy...the boy must die?" asked Sherlock quite calmly.

"And Voldemort himself must do it, Sherlock. That is essential."

Another long silence. Then Sherlock said, "I thought...all those years...that we were protecting him."

"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength," said Dumbledore, his eyes still tight shut. "Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth. Sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort."

Dumbledore opened his eyes. Sherlock kept his expression neutral.

"You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?" he plaintively

"Don't be shocked, Sherlock. How many men and women have you watched die?"

Sherlock didn't answer. He stood up. "You have used me."

"Meaning?" Dumbledore inquired

"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep the boy safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter "

"But this is touching, Sherlock," said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"

"For him?" roared Sherlock. "Expecto Patronum!"

From the tip of his wand burst a small spiky creature. It nuzzled itself against Sherlock's cheek then landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched the hedgehog fly away, and as its silvery glow faded he turned back to Sherlock, and his eyes were full of tears, and his expression one of horror.

"I thought…Mary…"

"Mary meant nothing to me. It was him."

"Even after all this time?"

"Always," said Sherlock.

A single tear trickled down his face, right across the spot where the patronus had touched him.


End file.
